Eddy turned to the chief of security. “Where did you find her?”
“Facial recognition picked her up on surveillance, heading out from Arrivals,” came the reply.
Eddy strode into the private lounge and gave Mr. Jordan a curt nod. “Sorry, I need to head back to the airport for something urgent. I’ll visit again later.”
Mr. Jordan noted Eddy’s cold, abrupt manner, but for Rebekah’s sake, he let it pass.
Eddy marched out without another word.
Rebekah hurried after him. “Wait up, Eddy!”
Left behind, Mr. Jordan offered an apologetic smile to Ms. Griffiths in the next lounge. “I’m sorry about my niece. She can be a little impulsive.”
“It’s fine,” Blanche replied, her hand tightening ever so slightly at her side. “Mr. Jordan, you know my situation. I hope you can keep it confidential, no matter who
asks.”
“From now on.
“Of course,” Mr. Jordan said, guilt coloring his voice. I’ll arrange a private car for you. No one else will come near.”
“The hotel you’re staying at is registered under my wife’s name. You can rest assured–no one will know where you are.”
“Thank you. I’ll send you the project proposal tonight. If you have any questions, let me know and I’ll make changes. If not, I’ll get to work on the system right away and run a live test to finish the task.”
“Good. The car’s waiting at the back entrance. I’ll walk you out,” Mr. Jordan offered.
“No need, the driver can take me.” Blanche smiled as she took the briefcase Caleb
handed her, then followed the driver out.
After they left, Mr. Jordan’s personal assistant frowned. “She’s awfully young for al department head. She looks like a college kid. Are we sure she can help us?”
Mr. Jordan shot the assistant a sharp look. “Don’t judge by appearances. She’s a world–class-
Hacker!
He caught himself just in time. He couldn’t let Blanche’s identity slip, not to anyone. “Just do your job,” he finished curtly. “And remember, not a word about Ms. Griffiths
Chapter 188
to anyone.”
Blanche climbed into the car and immediately pulled a laptop from her briefcase. Her slender fingers danced over the keyboard, and a grid of minesweeper tiles
filled the screen.
In recent years, things abroad had grown more dangerous, and the dark web’s reach was closing in on her. Wherever she went, she erased her tracks.
Caleb, her assistant, muttered from beside her, “Does being the director’s niece mean she can just barge in here like that? She knew we were in that lounge, but she didn’t care at all.
“Good thing she didn’t catch you, ma’am.”
Blanche just smiled, a little helplessly. “Let it go, Caleb. Quiet, please–I need to focus on my work right now.”
Caleb zipped his lips and even mimed locking them, earning a soft, exasperated laugh from Blanche.
Meanwhile, Eddy had reached the airport’s operations office.
“Sir, look at this,” the bodyguard said, handing Eddy an arrival sign with ‘Blanche‘
written on it.
A spark flared in Eddy’s numb heart, setting it pounding in his chest.
Three years. After all this time, he was finally about to see his wife again.
He took the sign, pressing it tightly in his palm as he entered the surveillance room. The security footage started rolling. A technician narrated, “About ten minutes before you left, the system picked up your wife and a young woman leaving through Arrivals. Several men met them there.”
As the video played, the image shimmered oddly, as if a magnetic field had disrupted it. The technician blinked in shock. “Wait, I just saw-”
He rubbed his eyes, stunned. Anxiety crept into his voice as he glanced at Eddy. “Mr. Simmons, I swear I saw your wife just now, but now there’s only the younger woman in the frame!”
“You all saw it too, right?” he asked, tugging at the bodyguard’s sleeve, desperate for confirmation.
But the bodyguard only stared at his shoes, too intimidated by Eddy’s darkening
21:54
expression to say a word.
Sometimes it was better to find nothing at all than to have hope ripped away.
The hope that had flared in Eddy’s chest guttered out, just as it had so many times over the past three years. How much more could anyone take?
His eyes turned cold, unreadable. He absently traced his finger over Blanche’s name on the arrival sign.
Back in Novandria, the same thing had happened. Whenever his wife appeared on security footage, the images would either vanish or fail to capture her at all–like she’d simply disappeared from the face of the earth.
